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The Department of Transportation playfully apologized to a commuter of the Metro Rail Transit System (MRT-3) who posted a complaint on social media about a train that was “inhumanly” cold.

The government agency shared a reaction from their “#MRTStories” posts that called out the MRT-3 management.

The “#MRTStories” is a hashtag that the agency uses to gather comments from commuters, as well as funny remarks, eventful commuting experiences or complaints.

Other commuters who saw the particular “#MRTStories” post shared their own experiences, claiming that there are other coaches with poor air-conditioning systems while there were those who commented that the commuter was exaggerating.

Plans to improve MRT-3

The government in November 2018 signed a billion-peso loan agreement with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to improve and rehabilitate MRT-3.

JICA will provide the Philippines with ¥38.1 billion (about P18.76 billion or $362 million) to partially fund the rehabilitation that is estimated to cost a total of P21.96 billion. It is expected to fix MRT-3’s safety, reliability and level of service.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said that the EDSA-plying railway will be repaired in the “most comprehensive fashion” through tracks replacement, an upgrade of the train’s signaling system and a general overhaul of the coaches.

Sumitomo-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the original service provider of the MRT-3, was tapped to oversee the project.

The rehabilitation was initiated after the railway suffered at least 500 breakdowns in 2017, more than the amount recorded in 2016.

In fact, some of its worst incidents were reported by a local media outlet that cited the MRT-3 breaking down 31 times in a week, one of its seat catching fire and a coach getting detached that caused commuters to walk in railways.

Another local media outlet reported that MRT-3 experienced “an average of two glitches a day” in 2017.

It was also the year when Cabinet officials under the Aquino administration and Korean company Busan Universal Rail, Inc. were charged with plunder for alleged corruption in relation to the railway’s maintenance contract.